Exhausting Week…

Nice that the block editor keeps the alt text of previous images unlike the classic editor. I’m always forgetting to add it and Ashley says we should. If we copypasta an entire post, of course, the alt text is kept, but (1) I haven’t found the copy button yet on Blocky, and (2) sometimes that’s annoying anyway because you have to delete so much. Ideally, my saved pieces will have All The Things.

This is my first post today (Friday, June 5)… though I realize for some of you it’s already Saturday and you’re onto the Stream of Con thingie. I’ll do that next if I don’t collapse here at the table as I do sometimes. Fan. Fan fan fan. Lots of ways to go there. Again, I failed to do the flashback… maybe that won’t be a regular feechur here any longer, idk. I’m pretty bored with it, plus I like to write new things. I did do a brief search yesterday, but only one year came up and I didn’t like anything. Remember that, even though this blog is a decade old, there were times I didn’t post much and other times I went through and hosed vast amounts of jabber off the sidewalk. That was because (1) I like getting rid of old, negative vibes, and (2) I kept restarting the dating stupidity and thought men might go back and read it and get the (correct) idea that I’m a big crab. I should have been searching for a lobster, or someone relatively crunchy.

I’ve been posting more from my laptop instead of my phone. That’s because my hand hurts. Idk if it’s arthritis or what. It seems like it probably is. In any case, normal typing on a keyboard is much more comfortable for my hand than poking at the phone buttons. That’s why, if anyone wondered, I’ve been using fewer emoticons… sometimes I save a post and then open it on my phone and “decorate” it before publishing, but not always. I told my doctor about my hand on our tele-visit and asked if it was okay to use ICYHOT. He said sure but it didn’t do anything except excite my nerves to distract me from the pain for a bit. Ever since then, the ICYHOT has lost its appeal, lol. Which is great because I have a multipack of the stuff from Amazon that I ordered to get a great bargain. [insert eyeroll]

I had trouble sleeping this week. All the chaos in the streets/media just got to me (again). Worry for myself, my work, my family, their work, health, safety, finances, all of it, circles and ripples and spirals of worry. I haven’t been able to fall asleep for real until way after midnight (sometimes I have a crash nap for a few minutes here & there)… sometimes not until 2AM. And I don’t sleep that much later to make up for it… I am usually awake by 6:30 at the latest, though I will try to doze off and on for another hour, if I can. I get up tired, which I hate, and muddle through the day, sometimes finding energy in the afternoon, depending on the day. It’s just an exhausting cycle. I’m hoping to get it under control this weekend with some good self-care.

Needless to say, I’ve had to focus what little mental sharpness I’ve had on work and there was nothing left for my writing projects. That’s just how it is and I refuse to beat myself up over it. I didn’t go outside and exercise, even though things are opening up, because of the protests and random weird stuff going on. I absolutely do not want to get involved in anything. That’s just how I am, and if anyone has a problem with it, please go rant on your own blog about the joys of activism. I’m in chronic pain and can’t fix the world, sorry. Marching/yelling/being in a glob of people would certainly give me migraines and back pain for days. I was glad to see that the protests in Orange County, California stayed peaceful and purposeful however. That didn’t interest the major news media, since they only want to show violence to get more shares and clicks.

Facebook is a drag. I was happy to return during the pandemic to reconnect with peeps… it was wonderful to be so warmly welcomed back. I totally dug that. It was easy enough to steer clear of most of the ranting politics and instead chat with peeps about their pets and recipes and what-all, but then along came this latest round of screaming. Peeps are diligently reposting links and memes and lecturing everyone else on the exact way to say things and do things and yada yada boo. I do feel proud that I received a “bless your heart” from a Texas conservative. I must be doing something right, eh? Mostly though I tiptoe around now because I don’t need someone to messily explode at me for not wording my feels in the prescribed manner. I hesitate to post anything myself in fear of starting a massive war of words in my comments, since I have friends from all over the political spectrum. Meh.

Twitter is nuts. I keep losing followers, though I don’t say a damn thing. How could I offend anyone? Maybe they die, idk. Yesterday I complained about my sinking stats and a few returned. Who even knows what is up with that place. I shouldn’t care about the numbers, and I wouldn’t except they’re right on the splash page of your profile. At least here on WP, I have to click somewhere to look at my pathetic stats. Yes, I know they are bad because I did look. Pffft. Don’t care. WHY don’t I care about my WP stats, when I’m writing here, but I care about my number of Twitter followers, when I barely tweet? There is a mystery…

Okay, this is long. I should go make some tea and write the fan thing now.

~*~

©️2020 Paula Light and Light Motifs II. No unauthorized use permitted. Please check out Paula’s books for sale on Amazon.

Image originally found on Pixabay.

Not A Flashback #PoiMe

Yep, it’s Friday. And yep I did a search for May 29th posts last night, but nothing grabbed me. I had a One-Line Wednesday that came up about migraine tigers (triggers), but if I’m going to post about head pain, I’d prefer to ramble on about it anew. Oh! Did I tell you… I’m sloooowly going off one of my meds? Yep, my doc and I discussed it in a virtual visit last week and I’ve now cut Topamax 25% and am okay so far. It’s a good time to try this when I don’t have so much going on and can lie down if I need to. The drug was a lifesaver at a time when I was super-stressed, but things are pretty chill now and I don’t like all the side effects, especially feeling so blah. I can always go back on if my migraines get too horrible to bear, but my hope is that I can cope without it and I’ll have more energy again and can start to exercise more (i.e., at all). The goal is to be completely done by June 30. Since my head gets really bad toward the end of August through September, whatever I do, this will be a good way to make sure I don’t confuse that inevitable badness with going off the drug. I’m determined to be optimistic even though I did this a couple years ago and it was a big fail. I had more stressors then though.

Not that things aren’t stressful in the world now. Right? I mean gah! But I feel lucky that I’m able to stay pretty isolated from it all and I’m also the kind of person who doesn’t mind being isolated. My personal life (knock wood) is calm, even while the world is falling apart. I’m sorry world, but there isn’t much I can do about the things out there except try not to make them worse. Perhaps staying in here, as I do, helps a little. At least I’m not using much gas anyway. But things are “opening up” again, which doesn’t make a lot of sense to me as the virus numbers are climbing, but what do I know, eh? Maybe they felt more and more people were going to take to the streets in protest so they’d better let them start going to the Cheesecake Factory (just an example ~ I don’t actually know if the Cheesecake Factory is open). Nothing is perfect. Personally, I am not going to sit in a restaurant, or anywhere else, among a giant glob of people, anytime soon. I just don’t see why I should take that risk. I’m fine at home by myself, going out to get groceries once a week, and stopping at my office (alone) to pick up the mail and water the plants. I understand that some people are going out of their minds without actual physical companionship, but I’m not one of them. The only thing I truly miss is not being able to see my family and the routine of going to the office 9-5 daily. I’m one of those weirdos who likes doing that. There are very few of us apparently… most people prefer blobbing around the house in sweatpants. Bleh.

I don’t really have interesting thoughts about current events. My view is likely the typical “liberal” one on most things, except I don’t allow disgust for a leader to create my reaction to every issue. One thing I differ on from many is my view about social media. I’ve already mentioned my unpopular idea that I do think there is something wrong with the idea of providing a platform for people to be utterly horrible to each other, even to the point of ganging up on someone and driving them to suicide, in order to make money from ads, and then shrugging off all responsibility for it. I’ve said that one possible solution is to disallow anonymity. One account, one person, and it trails you forever like a fingerprint. Well, no one likes that because it’s as scary as a microchip in a vaccine. What about forcing the companies to enforce their own TOS and not selectively as they do but consistently and fairly? Maybe they’d make less money, boo hoo. I don’t think children should be on social media at all. It’s bad. But if “everyone else is” and that’s how teachers are giving out lesson plans, well, whaddayagonnado?

One thing I really dislike about this new block editor is that I don’t see my word count as I type. Where is it? Last time I copypasta’d my writing into a Word document to obtain it, but that’s just dumb. There should be a word counter somewhere! It’s probably here in some menu that makes no sense off to the side and I’m just not finding it. I know, what a weird thing to get annoyed about, but hey that’s me! Weird things annoy me. I need to know my word count, grrrr. Otherwise, there’s literally nothing wrong with typing in blocks and I don’t know what people are so fussed about unless you have some huge complicated page with moving parts you need to paste in. I’m just straight up typing and it’s fine. I don’t know if I can add my photo here (but that was the case with the old editor as well) ~ if I can’t, I’ll save the post and add the photo from the app. (Added the photo!)

Today I need a stamp. Why can’t we pay the water bill online? I don’t think that’s enough for a whole Monday Peeve, so I’ll just leave it right here. Maybe something will annoy me when I walk over to the Post Office and it can be my Monday Peeve, but it’s just a stamp. What could go wrong?

I FOUND THE WORD COUNTER! It’s the little “i”. Why wouldn’t you know that? Who wouldn’t think to click the little “i”…

~*~

©️2020 Paula Light and Light Motifs II. No unauthorized use permitted. Please check out Paula’s books for sale on Amazon.

Image originally found on Pixabay.

Changes… [socs]

Changing things up by choosing the challenging block editor to format this post. Will it check out okay or turn into a chaotic disaster? We shall see! I’m a bit scared in starting this new chapter of bloggery, but sometimes you can’t be a chicken and you have to simply charge ahead and cross that channel. Choices make our characters, right? I don’t want to be chained to the classic editor if this one is better and all it takes is a simple leap of faith (off my lazy chair) to learn a few new tricks to get the hang of it. Cheers!

~*~

Image found on Google.

©️2020 Paula Light and Light Motifs II. No unauthorized use permitted. Please check out Paula’s books for sale on Amazon.

Sadje’s Questions

The lovely Sadje tagged me for some Q’s. Thanks for the opportunity to talk about one of my favorite subjects! 🤣

What is your favorite time of the day?

Lately I’ve become an afternoon person. I don’t mean since The Thing, but gradually over the last decade or so. I used to love mornings, but I’m pretty achy when I first wake up now and it takes me a while to feel okay and be productive.

How strict are you with yourself, regarding health?

I’m good about not overeating, but I’m terrible at exercising. I’m good about eating veggies and not subsisting on Snickers bars like I used to, and I rarely touch alcohol.

Do you follow back a blogger who follows your blog?

Mostly not, unless they comment and their blog interests me. If they simply follow and like posts, I may not even notice them.

How do you deal with criticism in real life?

Depends who it’s from. If it’s from someone who is signing my paycheck or someone I gave birth to, I’ll take it seriously. Anyone else, probably not so much. This is different from writing critique when I’ve requested it, of course. 🙂

How do you deal with criticism in the blogging world?

Usually they get thrown in the trash. I am not obligated to provide a forum for jerks and meanies. They can post their crap on their own blogs. Way back in the day, I thought I should allow all comments to pass through, but why? This is my space. Anyone can get their own.

Any ideas about how we can turn the current situation to our advantage?

Yes. The auto insurance companies have reported a decline in claims during the past couple months since people have been staying home. This is obvious, right? Fewer miles driven = fewer accidents = fewer injuries and deaths. But really think about that every time you get in a car. It’s one of the most dangerous things we do. 😬

Are you a dessert person?

I used to be. I used to crave sweets and make a dessert my whole meal. I’m sure I still would if it was available. But I seem to have lost the intense cravings I once had, and I’m much more satisfied with healthy choices. 🥑

What colors do you like to wear?

I like a bunch of neutrals in browns, black, beige, white, etc. and then one thing in a bright color like pink or turquoise. Or on the weekend I might put the brighter colors together if I’m feeling whimsical.

What color decor you like around you, in your home?

Browns and animal print things. 🐯

What is your favorite place to write from?

Probably my kitchen table on my iPhone.

Do you like getting Blogging awards?

Sure! It’s nice when someone thinks of me. I hope people don’t mind if I only answer the questions though and don’t tag anyone.

~*~

Image from Bitmoji.

©️2020 Paula Light and Light Motifs II. No unauthorized use permitted. Please check out Paula’s books for sale on Amazon.

Housesweeping

Hey bloggity friends! I took the opportunity of all this downtime to do blog admin tasks, and one that was overdue was a cleanup of my followed blogs. I had some bloggers in there that hadn’t posted anything in over two years. Yikes! 😱

I’ve swept out around 150 blogs now and may take another look tomorrow. Part of my rationale also is interaction ~ if I didn’t recognize a blogger’s name because they never bother to come over here and leave a comment, I may have given them the hose. I’m not one to find it fun to trail after a “celebrity” trying to get them to notice me.

Again, this blog isn’t monetized. I do this for fun, writing inspo, and interaction. It’s not my mission to pile up likes and follows. I’m happy when I get comments on a post is what. Likes are great too… I like posts sans commenting at times. But not all the time. Now, with fewer blogs in my feed, I’ll have more time to comment!

If I’ve mistakenly unfollowed you, please let me know… by leaving a comment. 🤣

~*~

Image from Bitmoji.

©️2020 Paula Light and Light Motifs II. No unauthorized use permitted. Please check out Paula’s books for sale on Amazon.

Bloggerz

1. Where is your usual location for meeting friends?

Before the lockdown, we used to have dinner at various local restaurants a couple times per month, and usually once a month there was a game night at someone’s home.

2. What is your favourite time of the day and has it changed recently due to current events?

I have become an “afternoon person.” I usually have the most energy then and feel my best. This has gradually changed from being a “morning person” over the past decade.

3. What do you find embarrassing to talk or write about?

[Or do you not suffer with this?]

I’ve quit discussing in depth how I’ve failed at every romantic relationship or attempt thereof. It’s not really all their fault.

4. What will you NEVER write about?

I don’t write much about work.

[Why?]

Because.

5. Do you ever read erotic fiction or exotic literature of another kind?

I used to, but it’s become tedious unless it’s part of a real story, which it usually isn’t.

6. How confident are you about …. you?

It varies. I know we’re supposed to say RAH RAH CONFIDENT! But that’s BS. Everyone makes mistakes, including me. I recognize them and I apologize for them. I don’t see others doing so much of this, so in a weird, twisted way, this makes me feel superior. I’m so cool with myself and my imperfect humanness that I can say hey I’m gonna screw up again and that’s okay. I see others strutting around with their memes and their fragile egos calling everyone else “stupid” for disagreeing with anything, and I smirk at them. Oo rant! 😜

7. Do you think in today’s digital climate with social media and so on … that people have too much to say and that they should be quieter or that people still are not talking enough?

They should definitely STFU… so they could hear what I have to say. I mean, really! 🤣

8. Do you censor your own writing before publishing?

[As in prevent yourself from writing or expressing certain things the way you really want to?]

Well, duh. If I didn’t, everything would be a rant.

9. If you weren’t already you upon waking to a new day, who would you want to be the next time you wake up?

[Why?]

Someone without headaches and other chronic pain! 😡

10. Have you done everything with your life you set out to when younger or are there still things you wish to achieve?

No. I meant to find my soul mate or life partner or however you wish to term the person you feel good sharing everything with, but I failed at that, and it was the most important thing. Raising great kids was also important, but now they’re on their own and I’m alone. 😢

11. What do you use when creating your blog posts and what would you sing the praises of with regards the creation of written content as opposed to a desktop or a laptop?

[If you do use a Desktop or a Laptop please also let me know]

Mostly the WordPress app for iPhone.

12. Do you give your readership what they want or what they need? What do you as a content writer and creator get from that for you?

I write what I want. I don’t know what my readers need. They seemed to enjoy dating stories, but I don’t have any more.

~*~

Written for Rory’s 12 Bloggerz.

Images from Bitmoji.

©️2020 Paula Light and Light Motifs II. No unauthorized use permitted. Please check out Paula’s books for sale on Amazon.

The Re-Vamp

Dr. Tanya asks if we are spending our lockdown time productively. She uses the example of fishermen repairing their nets when they are unable to go to sea. Perhaps we have updated or revamped our blogs? I like that word revamped since it implies my blog was vamping in the first place. 😈

“Good evening, darling. Mind if I slip into something a bit more… sharp?”

As a matter of fact, I have been working on my blog. I’ve cleaned up some typos and dead links (more work to do there) and consolidated a few tags. Still have too many tags. You may note that I resist adding tags for your convenience. Everyone wants a tag! My tags are for my convenience. When I link back, I do it in your comments and I haven’t had anyone say they were unable to find me. Why do I need to clutter up my tag list with one-hit wonders? 🙃

I’ve added more pages. You may not see this if you only read via the reader, but it is true regardless. I’ve been organizing my favorite posts into categories and linking them on tabbed pages. I’ve updated my bio page and the descriptions on the other pages. I’ve updated the photos as well as added more entries to fiction and poetry.

In April, I participated in the A2Z challenge using games as my theme. It was a lot of fun and not stressful because I didn’t link to the main site, so I didn’t get tons of new comments to deal with. I also didn’t feel obligated to visit new blogs. I already have lots of great blogs to read! ❤️ Guess what? I already have next year’s theme chosen. I’m an optimist.

Great question. 😻

~*~

Image originally from Mixcloud.

©️2020 Paula Light and Light Motifs II. No unauthorized use permitted. Please check out Paula’s books for sale on Amazon.

FPQ67: Tick Tock

Fandango provocatively asks…

As a blogger, when it comes to your blog, what makes you tick? ⏰

Fandango helpfully broke this question up into parts, and I shall address them one by one instead of in a big meandering glob.

1. What internal needs does blogging meet?

Though I’m an introvert, I have moderate needs to stay connected to people, but not in the traditional ways of going “out” (back when we were allowed to) to schmooze at parties and hang out in person. I’m not great with that stuff; it makes me anxious. Talking/listening is not my forte and I don’t drink alcohol to make it easier. Writing is a thing I’m good at though, and I’m much better at recalling the written word than the spoken one, so becoming part of a blogging community is a natural fit for me.

2. What part does blogging play in your daily life?

I look forward to reading my newsfeed a couple times per day and finding the funny and interesting posts from my peeps. I like their poetry, their flash fiction, and their life glimpses. I try to write a post or two each day that will interest at least a few of my followers.

3. How important is blogging to you?

It’s important enough that I paid for a WP account to eliminate ads. I also paid for my own domain name. None of this helps me sell books or gives me much tax relief (lol); I simply want my blog to look nice. I would rather blog than play online games, tweet, or jabber on FB all day, and my 2000+ posts reflect that time commitment.

4. If you weren’t blogging, how else would you spend your time?

Mm probably tweeting or finding some other social media in which to express my thoughts and connect with others.

5. On a scale of one to ten, with ten being blogging is your entire reason for being, and one being that, meh, you have nothing better to do, how does blogging rate?

~*~

Images from Fandango, Bitmoji, & Freepik.

©️2020 Paula Light and Light Motifs II. No unauthorized use permitted. Please check out Paula’s books for sale on Amazon.

Couple More Movies + Bonus Peeve!

I’m still not watching much TV in isolation, but I feel lucky I stumbled onto these two gems this past week. I vastly prefer a movie to a series. I like to be finished with a thing and know how it ends after a small time commitment. There are exceptions, of course, for fabulous shows like GOT, SFU, BB, etc. But I’m mostly not willing to keep trying one mediocre E1 after another.

1. The Duchess. This 2008 British drama starring Kiera Knightly and Ralph Fiennes is directed by Saul Dibb. It’s based on the married life of a real person, Georgiana Cavendish, the Duchess of Devonshire. Amanda Foreman wrote the biography upon which the movie is based. Michael O’Connor won the Academy Award for Best Costume ~ and the costumes are stunning. This is not a romance novel come to life, though it appears to begin as one. As time goes on, I keep hoping for happily ever after for the Duchess, but happiness seems to elude her at every turn. She has a wealthy and protected life, with every whim indulged, and we don’t dive into the problems of ordinary Englishmen in this film… one needs to be aware. But it is also true, and this is brought home to us a few times, that Georgiana’s life of luxury could be taken away at any point because her husband holds the key to everything. He gets to have a lover (as many as he pleases) when bored with marriage; she does not. There is criticism that the film is slow-moving, which I suppose it is, but I enjoyed it very much.

2. Off the Menu. Okay, here we do have a relatively typical rom-com. This 2018 Prime movie is directed by Jay Silverman and written by Jennifer Goldson. It stars Santino Fontana as Joel Flanagan and Dania Ramirez as Javiera Torres. Joel is an aimless rich dude; he’s living off his inheritance in a fancy house and trying out new health routines to the annoyance of his girlfriend, who dumps him. He has a law degree but hardly uses it. His ambitious sister, who heads the family fast food business, forces Joel to go on a quest for the perfect new taco taste to revitalize their sagging sales. But he hates Mexican food! He ends up in a small town at Javiera’s restaurant. Javiera is a single mom, struggling to keep her business going while refusing to serve anything but the freshest, most authentic Mexican cuisine. She hates fast food! Etc. It was cute.

Neither the visual nor the html menus will allow me to insert a line of white space between my two movies. I could take the numbers off entirely, but why? Why can’t I have my blank line? It’s as annoying as Word! Is that the aim of the Happiness Engineers, to make us scream with as much frustration here as when we’re trying to format a document in Word? If so, great job, guys! 🤬🤬🤬

Maybe I should watch Anger Management next…

~*~

Image credited to Bitmoji.

©️2020 Paula Light and Light Motifs II. No unauthorized use permitted. Please check out Paula’s books for sale on Amazon.

Whatever…

I guess I haven’t posted anything today. What’s left to say? I was looking forward to the FPQ, but then I saw I would have to listen to a news clip. Ughhh. Like I’m not glued to the news enough already? Too much and yet I can’t stop looking at it like I’m passing a car wreck except it’s the whole world in a wreck and I can’t just pass by because I’m living in it too.

Then I was gonna post for the Color Code Challenge, but I didn’t have anything. I had pics with colors, but no pics with groups of colors. Boo. That would have been a fun post, if it had materialized. 🌈

I thought about Sadje’s pic of the woman on a cliff with the broken god, but eh. Then there was a “glorious” sunrise or something too. Meh. Just not feeling the fiction. Or poetry. The challenge from last week was humor, but I’m too consumed with anxiety to be funny right now.

The weird thing is that I had a relatively good day, very productive. Things ended on a happy note too, and now I have a 4-day weekend. I had planned to go to Vegas with some friends, but obviously that’s not going to happen now. I’ll read, write, exercise, and maybe watch a few movies alone at home. Those are the kinds of things I enjoy, so I’m not upset about Vegas, but I dislike uncertainty. A lot. 🙁

Believe it or not, I watched Contagion last night. It’s a good movie! People wonder why I’d watch that now, but now is a great time to watch it imo. Absolutely stellar cast too. It’s weird to see Bryan Cranston before he played Walter White. (Never watched Malcolm.)

So anyway… I’ll be around. My Thursday Inspiration is coming right up tomorrow morning and I’m working on my April A-Z game posts here and there. It’s a good time to catch up on things.

Stay safe! 💖

~*~

Image originally found on Pixabay.

©️2020 Paula Light and Light Motifs II. No unauthorized use permitted. Please check out Paula’s books for sale on Amazon.